University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Managing Director, Lackson Kasonka, has attributed to lack of bed spaces to over use of the beds at the institution.
Dr Kasonka further says there is constant usage of beds at UTH due to the influx of patients from other health institutions who are being referred the institution.
Dr Kasonka was speaking when he received 25 beds, 25 mattresses and other hospital linen to the UTH wortha US $13,000 donation from Huawei Technologies Zambia Limited.
The donation will benefit the institution’s Adult Medical Emergency Unit popularly known as the Filter Clinic.
Dr Kasonka said the number of patients at UTH is ever increasing and called on the private sector to demonstrate their social responsibility by sharing their profits.
He paid gratitude to Huawei firm and called on others to emulate, saying the improvement of the health sector in the country is critical to improving the health of the people.
And Huawei Technologies Zambia Director for Government and Public Affairs, Jacky Zhang, said his company decided to donate to the country’s largest health institution because it is proud to be associated with improving the quality of health of the people.
Mr Zhang noted that China and Zambia enjoy warm and cordial relationship with one another and pledged to donate materials to UTH in the near future.
The donation made today at UTH was witnessed by both hospital staff and Huawei Technologies Zambia officials.
Huawei Technologies is a Telecommunication Company operating in Zambia.
ZANIS
Why quot in dollars? Money which goes to by-election should be use to purchase beds and other medical requirements
$520 or K3 million each Chinese single bed??? That is expensive
I was recently in Zambia and went to visit a sick relative at UTH. I was shocked by the state of disrepair, dirt and the stench that greets you not to mention the lack of supplies.
Its no doubt that when one is admitted to UTH for they are likely to get nosocomial infections such as C.diff, MRSA etc.
I would suggest that the institution be urgently repaired so that it becomes an institution for treatment and recovery than despair.
Zambians deserve and must demand better. Lets make our govt deliver and if they fail, vote them out, no excuses. It’s the only way we will move forward
If there is always money for by-elections, there must be money for bette healthcare, education, water & sanitation, roads…etc
My heart bleeds for the state of our health care system
$520 is cheap for a modern hospital bed if it is fitted with wheels, manual hydraulic lifts and other adjustments.
Why cant we use the $90,000 we should have given to the each national team player should they have retained the AFCON championship to revamp the situation at UTH?
We were ready to spend more than $2million in allowances on footbal players while our healthcare system decays such that even maggots are afraid of feeding on the rot!
Where is our dignity and our pride as humans and as a nation respectively?
While I appreciate football, does it take priority over healthcare, by-elections etc?
Have we stopped thinking to realise what comes first? football, by-elections or healthcare?
@penzi – spot on…what is a pantry US $13,000 when this president was happily willing to spend US $90,000 on one football player for kicking a piece of leather for 20 days work at AFCON!!
@ Penzi & @Jay Jay you brought up tough issue of using soccer budget to go towards health sector. Let see if any MP will adopt that and ask the parliament.
More by-elections, more looting of Gov money, let corrupt leaders walk free, give Pro Chirwa millions to play with….instead!!
But what about the government? what is it doing/ it is its responsibility to improve the health and lives of its citizens who put them in power. lets not always depend on the private sector and we forget the role we are to play.
completely agree and, for Mr/Dr Kansonka if the issue is for referrals from other institutions – why not build equivalent hospitals in practically every city, ‘boma’ so that this is not an issue – its a shame that even your medical degree ( i am assuming that you have a medical degree’ has not given you insight into these things, let alone common sense – MD for nothing
Are you people sure that the guy in picture is the Director at UTH, no wonder.
And if a whiteman Amsterdam call you an “i” words you go about showing your…
Does Sata knows that such a guy Kasonka is running the problematic UTH?
Marcus Garvy must be turning in his grave to think that there are black people like you entertaining insults from this Rob armsterdam.
Hey Nostradamus ,my hubby is fully aware that his tribes mate is running down UTH,and he cares not about it if did he would fired the incompetent MD in September 2011 . He would done the same to Zamtel by now the drunkard MD there should gone but poor Zambians you are in for a high jump with my hubby he’s a sweet potato you can’t straighten it now ,it’s too late.Ala bwafya asana mwandini at plot 1.
The first major mistake the made with UTH is employing a medical doctor to work as an MD….what would a doctor know about managing an institution…only in Zambia!!
Rubbish!!! How come the world bank is being run by a doctor? Tell me if the world bank is not being well managed
No management skills
The world Bank prezi , Dr. Kim, joined the World Bank group coming from a background managing his own initiatives as well as being president at Dartmouth Uni. So Unlike this chap at UTH, he has some actual management skills running large institutions. I would rather a professor from UNZA/ CBU be appointed to run UTH. Or better yet, get someone with a Public Health background (preferably masters level) to run the place. While we’re at it, we need to restructure the management hierarchy from Ministry right down to lower management of UTH and other health institutions. But if that’s too hard, continue with the mediocre way we have now.
I agree with the views of voodoo!,so the problem at UTH with the individual and not the profession. Doctors undertake management training as well in the MPH degree, nowadays they are also doing MBAs. Thanks for the clarification.
after completing the medical degree, there is an option of specializing in management (Master of Public Health, Master of International Health,etc.) as a post graduate qualification. so , some doctors have formal training in management and it is therefore wrong to generalize that doctors cannot be managers. some of the biggest and successful organizations in the world are being run by doctors, e.g. world bank, UNFPA, WHO, etc. To make such blogs more useful and informative, people need to do a bit of research before posting anything.
The cause-effect explanation is so simplistic it doesn’t even make sense. So then as a result private initiative must step in to solve the problem by sharing of profits? I don’t understand. What are the strategies on the part of UTH management to address this so-called “influx” from other health institutions? Profit sharing with private institutions so that more beds are purchased? What about space? Processes? Review of resource allocation? I agree with a blogger who laments having a medical doctor as MD for that institution. He (that MD) needs some basic Administrative and Strategic management training if only at a minimum.
Well put @Kalok. If only they would actually put their brains and backs into improving service and cut the waste (through graft and misguided endeavors).
The question is why are there suddenly a high number of patient referrals? what is it that is lacking at the smaller hospitals for patients to be referred to UTH? merely increasing beds does not solve the actual problem…this is likened to increasing road lanes every time you have traffic congestions.
Zambians especially professional like the MD also need to be enlightened about the true definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR)- it is NOT a one-off charity donation but a form of corporate self-regulation that is integrated in a company’s business model which mainly targets empowering the local community.
The solution is building more referal centres country.The problem is UKWA goes to India for treatment and he is not bothered about the health status in Zambia.As long as he gets better medical care abroad is all that matters.The common man must die for lack of treatment.
You *****, Sata went to India to meet hotel investors to come and build more hotels for UN tourist indaba. This information including the investors were shown conferring with Sata in a hotel in utapradesh on TV. Why not give Sata more long time to perform?
The solution is building more referal centres countrywide.The problem is UKWA goes to India for treatment and he is not bothered about the health status in Zambia.As long as he gets better medical care abroad is all that matters.The common man must die for lack of treatment.Buying beds will not solve the problems at UTH.More referal centres will certainly help.
The director is indeed very dull, so his assumption therefore is that the other institutions must have beds since they refer everyone to UTH.
The question is why does UTH not refer back those patients who are getting better?
Common sense would dictate that those who improve should be referred back to their referring hospitals but Kasonka doesn’t seem to have a clue in doing just that.
@1.4 penzi – spot on…here is a private company handing out US $13,000 worth of goodies (although it will get it all back via the attractive incentives on offer at ZRA) when this president was happily willing to spend US $90,000 on one individual football player for kicking a piece of leather for 20 days work at AFCON…. now the selfsame bloggers who were insulting us for citing that it was MISPLACED PRIORITIES will relies how many modern beds one can get with that amount of money…multiply that by 22 players + back room staff and you can even equip ZP with modern comms. equip and body vests for each officer on duty.
People are waking up now from their docility!!
Misplaced priorities in Zambia. I give up!
What happened to free food,drugs and bed space in UNIP days? why the chinese man has an english name? also his title is very confusing, with a govt..fimo fimo ku last is he a politician? the donation is too little anyway, its just my perdiem
Are you advocating a return to freebies as a solution? Does that mean that it will make it al better? The billions that will cost can be better used to improve infrastructure, pay, equipment and their allocation. Otherwise it doesn’t solve anything by throwing money at the problem with this notion of free food and all the other free stuff you miss from ‘UNIP days’. It was a foolish endeavour then, it it’s foolish today as well, not to say a money pit.
We should have left Sata in opposition. It’sso painful to read about UTH,especially that all our relatives who have gone there have not come back.
Iwee ama bloggers what you don’t understand is that when i was still working at UTH as a consultant ,we rarely did our rounds on time because we first had to work at our TUNTEMBA CLINICS and theatres which paid us a lot of money.For example one terminal of pregnancy would cost about K2m the clinic gets K500pin and the rest would mine .So if you had 6 women with unwanted pregnancies in one day you talking about well over K6m cool cash!Why rush to the stinky UTH to discharge patients ?This trend has definitely continued ,only poor Kasonka reports at 07;00 hours to listen to the same song sung on different days.
correction meant to say,……. TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY(TOP)
Please elaborate future as some of us don’t understand what you are trying to put across?
Please elaborate further as some of us don’t understand what you are trying to put across?
Repent for the many lives you have terminated full of God given potentials, there is nothing like unwanted pregnancies.
Useful information. Fortunate me I found your site by chance, and I am surprised why this coincidence didn’t happened earlier! I bookmarked it.
open other hospitals ba PF..what are you waiting for..?